Conference Report 2016

Section 1: Pay and Allowances
6.4 Garda pay was underfunded in the subsequent
benchmarking processes. This resulted in
widespread resentment, as our members
contended that they were being singled out due to
an inability to strike or to take limited industrial
action. This was the discriminatory treatment meted
out to this Association by being effectively and
persistently sidelined from the social partnership,
pay talks and negotiation process. The experience
of being corralled into a side room and presented
with an agreed deal (concluded with the ICTUaffiliated
unions in an adjoining room) was neither
edifying nor equitable. As a result this Association
repeatedly refused to sign-off on such deals.
6.5 The industrial relations temperature in An Garda
Síochána was increased in 2005, through the Garda
Síochána Act. Under Section 59 it is held that:
“a person is guilty of an offence if he or she induces,
or does any act calculated to induce, any member of
the Garda Síochána to withhold his or her services
or to commit a breach of discipline”.
6.6 We also had the breakdown of pay talks in 2009
that led to the GRA surveying members for industrial
action leading to the Croke Park Agreement in 2010;
subsequently the placard protests and Tallaght
‘Basketball Stadium” Rally that undermined the
attempted Croke Park II and resulted in Haddington
Road Agreement. Let us be reminded that this
Review is part of that dispute resolution, and yet
government pushed ahead with the Lansdowne
Road Agreement before this aspect had been
addressed.
6.7 At the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU)
conference in 2004 delegates voted in favour of an
amendment to their constitution, enabling the Garda
(and Defence Forces) associations to become
associate members of Congress. However,
subsequent initiatives endeavoured to ensure that
representative bodies in An Garda Síochána would
be forbidden from formal ongoing affiliations with
trade unions (i.e. non-membership of ICTU). Section
18(2) of the 2005 Garda Síochána Act states:
“An association established under subsection (1)
must be independent of and not associated with
any body or person outside the Garda Síochána, but
it may employ persons who are not members of the
Garda Síochána.”
6.8 Serving to further tighten the restrictions on this
Association, Section 18(4) of the Act states that:
“...if a question arises whether any body or
association is a trade union or association referred
to in subsection (3), the question shall be
determined by the Minister whose determination
shall be final.”
6.9 In 2009 the relevance of this enactment surfaced
when this Association’s Central Executive
Committee, in frustration at their ongoing exclusion
from the key national decision making forum and
processes, considered the possibility of balloting
the membership on a menu of industrial action
options. This raised a range of possibilities,
including the spectre of the Association’s
leadership being prosecuted or imprisoned.
6.10 A consequential development in the industrial
relations system in An Garda Síochána has been
from the European Committee of Social Rights,
operating under the auspices of the Council of
Europe. Like the European Court of Human Rights,
which is also part of the Council of Europe, the
Committee’s rulings are binding in law. Decisions of
the Committee are final and legally binding and do
not have to be endorsed by any other body. Courts
can declare invalid or set aside domestic legislation
if it is contrary to a decision of the Committee (e.g.
the Garda Síochána Act 2005).
6.11 The complaint brought was that the Irish
Government had violated certain elements of the
European Social Charter, which it had signed up to
(in November 2000) and focused on the fact that
representative bodies in An Garda Síochána:
“...do not enjoy full trade union rights, which include,
in particular, the right to join an umbrella
organisation and the right to bargain collectively”.
6.12 Specifically it was contended that existing
provisions violate Articles 5 (the right to organise), 6
(the right to bargain collectively) and 21 (the right to
information and consultation) of the European
Social Charter. The charter provides:
(a) Join the ICTU
(b) Access the services of the LRC
(c) Take collective industrial action.
6.13 Notably, the Committee’s findings weighed heavily
in favour of gardaí. The GRA sees both scope and
merit in enabling its access to the State’s third party
dispute resolution mechanisms.
38th Annual Delegate Conference
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